The Seductions of Identity: Thinking About Identity and Transgender

In this paper I first outline a conceptual compass to think about identity generally before addressing more specifically the question of transgender identity. To this end, I draw on Gilles Deleuze's (1993) related concepts of the rhizome and of the fold. I then argue that the body has always been and is ever-more-so the place for figurating the self, for finding and substantiating identity-hence, the unconscious psychic investments that we have in our bodies are key to our theorizing about any kind of identity. I propose that this focus provides a more productive, generative starting point for thinking about transgender identity specifically than any individual developmental theory because it accommodates the heterogeneity subsumed under the umbrella term transgender.